Assault Troopers

by Vaughn Heppner

  “Did you hear me, spaceman?” she asked.

  “It’s cold up there,” I said.

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “And it’s lonely,” I added.

  Her eyes narrowed, and her lips parted. It seemed she was about to give an order.

  It struck me then that I was dealing with a ruthless individual. The freighters were like prison back in the day. The toughest, strongest and most ruthless had ruled there. The woman could never match Demetrius and those like him in physical strength. No doubt, she used intellect, cold-bloodedness and cunning to stay in charge. That meant I couldn’t let her outmaneuver me and expect her to listen, really listen, to what I had to say. That meant I had to play an old game. The woman would only respect someone mentally stronger than herself.

  “Mister,” she said, “you want to be careful how you talk to me.”

  “That’s funny,” I said. “I was just about to tell you the same thing.”

  “Demetrius,” she said, sidestepping away from me. “Hurt him, but don’t kill him. I still have some questions I want answered.”

  Demetrius didn’t lumber at me like most big men would have done. He looked to weigh three hundred and twenty pounds and had size and reach on me. He came like a black belt in karate, hands up and approaching carefully. This man had beautiful coordination, and I sensed he had unusual speed.

  “Are you sure you want to go this route?” I asked the woman.

  “You look muscular and I’m guessing the aliens think you’re tough,” she said. “I want to see if it’s true.”

  “Fair enough,” I said, before concentrating on Demetrius. “Are you planning on breaking any bones?”

  He intensified his Rottweiler stare-down, and he opened and closed his hands several times. Then he made his first mistake. His eyes flickered to the right of me and gave a tight little nod. He shouldn’t have done that.

  It alerted me, and I heard the scuff of a boot behind and to my left. I guess the lady wasn’t taking any chances on losing one of her bad boys. I slipped to the side and half turned. A slender man with a sap in his hand moved toward me from the crowd at my back. As he did, his hand and the sap he held blurred as it aimed for my head. I moved faster, and I caught his wrist and twisted. Those nearest must have heard his wrist-bones snap. The slender man’s eyes went wide with shock. I pivoted, tucked my torso and hurled him at Demetrius. The body connected with a karate chop, and the slender man went down hard onto the deck plates.

  Several things happened at once then. Instead of continuing his attack, Demetrius retreated. I saw the surprise on his face. He practiced caution, and it told me the man was more dangerous than I’d realized.

  I picked up the leather-coated sap. While staring at the woman and using both hands, I tore the leather apart so lead shot rained onto the floor.

  “He’s stronger than he looks,” Demetrius told her.

  “And a whole lot faster,” the woman said. “What did the aliens do to you?”

  “Is that one of your questions?” I asked.

  “Why are you so angry?” she said.

  Her question ran deeper than my just being angry at the attack. She must have sensed the rage that boiled in me at the Lokhars, at the androids and Claath’s highhanded manner toward the so-called human “beasts.”

  “Do you have any idea about the bargain I made that gained you this shelter?” I asked.

  Unease entered her eyes. “Gained it for me specifically?” she asked.

  The four henchmen, led by Demetrius, protectively flanked her and looked ready to charge me.

  Did she think I’d picked her to be my woman? Is that how she interpreted my words?

  “No, not just you,” I said. “I bargained for everyone or anyone who happens to be living. I made sure they found survival in a Jelk freighter. This is about keeping the human race alive.”

  She traded glances with Demetrius. He gave another of his little nods. Facing me, she asked, “What did the bargain cost you?”

  “We need to talk in private,” I said instead of answering.

  She stared at me for three seconds before saying, “Follow me.”

  I have to admit I didn’t want to. They could ambush me or lead me to some horrific end. But I’d come alone for a reason. I had to believe these people still used reason. If they didn’t…then everything I was doing would be moot anyway.

  The woman halted and glanced back at me. “Are you coming or not?” she asked.

  I nodded, and followed her, liking the sway of those hips.

  She led us through a maze. Everywhere we went people jumped off the floor and slid against the walls, getting out of her way. Their actions told me the woman used terror at times. It also told me the aliens left humanity alone in the freighters. That part was good. This brutality…I didn’t like it. Humanity was turning wolf again, falling back toward savagery. They were making Shah Claath’s words true. I had to make them become lies.

  We entered a larger corridor, with chairs along the sides and rugs thrown down. Many of the chairs held women, the most in one place and the prettiest I’d seen so far besides the leader. Many had pregnant bellies.

  I approved of that part of it. I’m not sure they liked the men or the leader. But what could I do about that now? It was survival of the fittest, the meanest and the most hardheaded. I understood about the iron law of prison, the law of tooth and claw as stated by Jack London in Call of the Wild. I should have realized it would be like this and prepared accordingly.

  She sat in a chair and indicated another one facing her.

  I noticed my chair had its back to the people in here. Picking it up, I repositioned the chair so I had a wall behind me.

  She glanced at Demetrius before turning her chair to face me. “You’re not too trusting,” she said.

  “Are you?” I asked.

  She smiled faintly, and it was all the answer I needed.

  “I’m Creed,” I said.

  She frowned, and I expected her to ask what my first name was. Instead, she said, “I’ve heard that name somewhere.”

  “Mad Jack Creed,” I said.

  “Who is that?” she asked.

  “You never watched TV?”

  Her eyes widened. “The shuttle pilot who went to meet the aliens, his name was Creed.”

  “He was my dad,” I said.

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  I shrugged. “He went the way he would have wanted. I can’t say that for the rest of humanity.”

  “So why did the aliens do it?” she asked. “And why do you work for them?”

  Her questions told me plenty. First, that Claath or the androids hadn’t told these people much about anything.

  “Before we really start,” I said. “I need two things. To begin, what’s your name?”

  “Diana,” she said.

  “Like Diana the Huntress?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m the Roman moon goddess and I hunt those who displease me.”

  “I bet,” I said. “Now the second thing I’m going to need to know is if you have any brandy, any booze at all.”

  “Why would you need to know that?”

  “Because I need a drink,” I said.

  Diana measured me with her gaze, and finally, she glanced at Demetrius. The big henchmen growled an order. A pregnant woman slid off her chair, opened a cooler and brought him two Budweiser cans. He stood there, with one in each hand.

  “Give our guest a beer,” Diana said. “I’ll take the other one.”

  Demetrius practically threw a can at me. With neuro-fiber-enhanced speed, I snatched it out of the air, doing it in a lazy way as if bored with them.

  I noticed Diana’s eyes: they shone with appreciation. Did she used to be a cage fighting junkie? This lady obviously knew about fighting men.

  “Thanks,” I said, popping the tab so spray fizzled out and then foam bubbled. I slurped the foam before guzzling the beer until I drained the can. That tasted good.
“Get me another one,” I said. “I have a lot to say and it’s going to make my tongue dry.”

  I could see the wheels turning in Diana’s mind. “Do it,” she told Demetrius.

  I tossed my empty can aside. Diana sipped from hers.

  “Haven’t had a beer for weeks,” I said.

  “Your masters don’t give you any?” she asked.

  I decided to let that pass. In truth, I appreciated her angry heat toward the aliens. At least she hadn’t turned into a bootlicker.

  “You run all three freighters or just this area?” I asked.

  She measured me again with those blue eyes of hers. If I didn’t know better, I would have felt as if she sized me up to be her partner. There was a hint of promise in her look. The terror I’d seen earlier in the people here cautioned me toward trusting what I saw in Diana. This woman used guile in everything. Of that I had no doubt.

  “I run half this freighter,” she said. “Rex Hodges is lord of the rest of it.”

  “Is someone in charge of everything?” I asked.

  “You’re with the aliens,” she said. “That means you should know more about how things work down here. You shouldn’t be asking me those kinds of questions.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” I said. “Everything you think you know about the situation and about me—erase it from your thinking. Things aren’t how you think they are. That’s one of the reasons I’m here.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That you should listen more carefully to what I’m saying. Secondly, that you should hurry up and answer my questions. I don’t have much time.”

  It took several seconds, but she nodded. “No one has had the guts to try to grab full power. Truth is we’re not sure the aliens will let us.”

  “Are there any aliens aboard the freighters?”

  She laughed in a throaty way. “Not a chance. We’d kill them if there were.” She glowered at me. “Some of us have been wondering if you’re here to impose some kind of martial alien law. Why are you here, spaceman? Tell us the truth.”

  One of the other henchmen handed me a second beer. I cracked the tab and sipped this time.

  “Diana,” I said, “the Lokhars destroyed our world. The Jelk, the one who owns these freighters, must have chased the Lokhar ship away.”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” she said.

  I noticed she didn’t say we, but I. That was important.

  For the next several hours, I told her what I knew. Her men brought more beer and time passed as I related my story.

  “It’s bad then,” Diana said. “The Jelk are our jailors or minders. You’d better win them that Altair Object.”

  “Tell me, Diana. What do you want out of life?”

  She leaned back in her chair so the metal creaked. She eyed me, and I felt something stir. “Survive it for now, I guess. Keep running the show as long as I’m smart enough.”

  Several of her henchmen nodded.

  “You’re living like cons in here,” I said. “That doesn’t seem to be a way for the last humans to live.”

  “Seems doesn’t have much to do with anything anymore,” Diana said. “We’re just doing it by keeping ourselves alive.”

  “Listen,” I said. I figured it was time to broach the topic, to get down to the business of my visit. “What I’m seeing around me…it’s going to take a strong and cunning person to change things for the better. Even more than that, it’s going to take good ideas. You need to find truly hardheaded people among the leaders and their henchmen. You need to set up a secret society with the goal of supplanting the aliens.”

  As I talked, Diana’s features became blank, a wall to hide her emotions or thoughts. “What you’re saying sounds like you’re betraying your word to the Jelk,” she said. “Like treason.”

  I laughed bitterly. “Do you think it would be treason if a dog on a leash slithered free of its collar and wandered around town for a while? That’s not treason. That’s an animal breaking loose. The Jelk think we’re beasts. Animals don’t have any more loyalty than licking the hand that feeds them.”

  “It’s really that bad?” Diana asked.

  “Worse,” I said, “much worse.”

  “We don’t have a chance then. Our time is over.”

  “Wrong,” I said. “But if you really think so, I’m talking to the wrong person.”

  Diana stroked her jaw, thinking. I didn’t want her to think too much in the wrong direction. Meaning, I didn’t want her hopeless but hopeful.

  “Tell me, Diana. What did you do before this?”

  “I ran a lumber mill in Alaska. It was hard work.”

  Her answer surprised me, and I doubted she told me the truth. But I would play along. “You know how to keep things going then,” I said. “Running a gang in a place like this is more than heavy fists. You need to know how to deliver the goods, to keep order. You have a crew behind you and they look tough enough. But you—we—need more than that. You have to start a secret society that lives and breathes freedom for humanity. You have to start whipping these people into shape, teaching them the right things so they’re ready to act when a real chance comes along.”

  “What exactly am I supposed to teach them?” she asked.

  “I can’t think of everything,” I said. “I have enough troubles out in space. I helped buy you this opportunity, though. I bought our race time in order to turn things around. You have to come up with some ideas, with some schemes, on your own.”

  “Just what are you planning to do?” she asked.

  I’d drunk a few beers, not that many, but enough to loosen up some. I pulled my chair closer to hers until our knees touched.

  Her eyebrows rose, and I noticed Demetrius bristling. It must have been spite, but I patted her knee, letting my hand linger there.

  “I don’t plan on living the rest of my life being treated as a beast,” I said in a low voice. “I don’t plan on letting us sink into extinction. The cards are stacked against us. That’s clear, right?”

  She glanced at my hand before nodding.

  “I’m going to cheat, Diana. I’m going to do whatever I can whenever I get the chance to reshuffle the deck. The truth is that I have no idea what I’m going to do exactly. I didn’t know my entire plan when I charged up the ramp into the alien lander. I’m watching them closely. I’m learning, and I’m getting more dangerous every day. One thing I’m going to do is fight with every ounce of my mind and muscles to tear this slave collar off my neck. We’re going to be free, and we’re going to hammer the Lokhars like they’ve never believed possible.”

  “Big talk,” Diana said.

  “Yeah, you said it. I don’t know where I read it, but a person once said that boldness is genius and has power all on its own. I plan to be bold like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “Who dares, wins,” Demetrius said. “Now take your hand off her knee.”

  I glanced at him, and in the interests of peace I took my hand away.

  “You never heard that one?” he asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “It was the SAS motto,” he said. “The British Special Air Service.”

  I did note an accent, a slight one. If Demetrius used to be SAS, that would make him doubly dangerous.

  “From your stories,” Diana said, “your boldness has almost gotten you killed a couple of times. It seems to me you might try another way.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “My boldness has also given humanity a slim opportunity to rise up from the ashes of total defeat. I need fighters, Diana. I need men and women back here who will dare to dream with me. Maybe I’m a fool to confide in you. I don’t know. I have to take a chance. I have to practice boldness. I don’t know how many of the various freighter shelters the Jelk are going to let me visit, but I’m going to keep preaching. You have to be ready.”

  “Ready for what?” she asked.

  I shoved away from her and stood up. She and her listening henchmen stood with me
. Demetrius hunched forward, with his hands opening and closing as if wanted to attack me again and finish it. He must still be thinking about my hand on her knee.

  “Come on, Diana,” I said. “You already know for what. Didn’t you learn about your country’s origin? Or did you go to the new public schools that forgot to teach old-fashioned American values like freedom, liberty and courage? George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry: ‘Give me liberty or give me death.’ Do you want to be a dog the rest of your existence?”

  “Hell no,” she said.

  “Some of us are in space,” I said. “Some of us are down here getting the people ready.”

  “You don’t think the aliens monitor us then?” Diana asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “They do, but not in the way we think.”

  Diana nodded slowly and I could see she really was thinking about what I’d said.

  “Okay,” I said. “I don’t know how much time I have left down here, but I need to talk to Rex Hodges and rest of the leaders in this complex. Can you arrange it?”

  Diana pursed her lips. “I like your spirit, spaceman. You’ve given me hope again, something I’d thought I’d lost forever. I don’t know if you’re a crazy man or for real. Let’s go talk to Hodges. It’s been some time since I’ve seen him. He’s a tough one, though, an ex-pro football star who played tackle for the Cowboys.”

  “You’re kidding,” I said. “That Rex Hodges?”

  “The same,” Diana said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  -11-

  I should have thought harder on what Diana asked: “Don’t the aliens listen to or monitor us?”

  Claath claimed to view us as animals. How did the androids view us? How closely did the androids work with the Saurians? The lizards didn’t have any reason to love me.

  After spending half a day in the Baja freighter complex, I trudged back to the waiting air-car and the android pilot.

  The other leaders had been big, tough and willing to crack heads to get what they wanted. Henchmen backed them, and the leaders knew how to divide the little food, water and wealth in their possession to keep the rest from rioting. Otherwise, what I’d seen depressed me. If the other freighters were like this, humanity hung on by a thread. We’d all become beggars, living off scraps tossed us by the Jelk and packed into steel-walled slums.